DIY Reverse Trike Bike Has Sick IFS

March 7, 2015 by Rich Bremer 23 Comments

There is certainly no shortage of bicycle builds out there on the ‘net. We’re not talking custom race bikes or anything here, we mean cool odd-ball bikes built just because. We’ve seen trike conversions before, both with single wheels in the front and in the back, but today we stumbled across something we haven’t seen before.

[Kong79] has built a reverse trike, with 2 wheels in the front. That by itself is nothing new but this trike has an independent front suspension, meaning each wheel can move up and down independently from the other. This particular build uses a double A-arm setup that keeps the axle of the wheel near parallel with the ground throughout its range of travel.

The trike started off as a standard mountain bike. The front fork was removed to make way for the new front suspension. There is a new box frame that was welded up and positioned directly below the head tube. This frame will support all 4 A-arms. Speaking of the A-arms, they certainly aren’t off the shelf units. Take a look, the uppers are bike forks and the lowers were welded together from bike frame tubes.

The spindles are where it gets a little tricky but [Kong79] made it happen with his resourcefulness. Bike head tubes, head bearings and standard stems make up the spindle components and are responsible for allowing each front wheel to steer. Each spindle is connected to the steering column by a tie rod scrounged from an ATV. The shocks were found at a motorcycle scrap yard.

This is a pretty unique build and it’s sure great to see people doing stuff like this. For more trick trikes, check out this wooden one or this no-weld-required recumbent.

Dogless Dog Sleigh Is Perfect For Your Winter Commute

February 26, 2015 by James Hobson 16 Comments

It’s a wee bit cold in Finland right now. And while dog sledding is always an option (though mostly for tourists), one gentleman who goes by [Jibjorkl] on YouTube decided to try making his own motorized sleigh — and it’s freaking awesome.

Unfortunately our Finnish language skills aren’t exactly up to snuff so we’ll just have to describe the invention; perhaps one of our Finnish readers could add some insight if we miss anything?

It appears that [Jibjorkl] has taken a hub motor with a wheel from a standard e-bike and mounted on what looks like a store-bought sleigh. The wheel has something which looks kind of like duct tape wrapped around it to help give it extra traction in the snow. There are two lead-acid batteries sitting atop the motor assembly, but we can see an e-bike Li-on pack mounted on the side too (likely 48V 20+aH).

Regardless of how it works — it’ll take two passengers pretty damn fast through the snow. We want to build one asap.

Continue reading “Dogless Dog Sleigh Is Perfect For Your Winter Commute” →

Serious Skateboard Build Lets You Snowboard Down The Street

February 20, 2015 by Rich Bremer 11 Comments

For some of you HaD readers it’s winter and heading up to a mountain to go snowboarding is quite convenient. Unfortunately, for the boarder-holics, the off-season comes too quickly and lasts far to long. [jfaneumann] is a snowboarder and wanted to get that same carvey feeling during the summer months so he made a DIY skateboard that rides like a snowboard.

[jfaneumann] didn’t come up with the design, it’s modeled after a commercially available product called the Freebord which is basically an oversize skate deck with extra-wide trucks and integrated pivoting wheels (think casters) in the center of the deck. The pivoting wheels stand a little bit proud of the other 4 wheels which makes the board only ride on the pivoting wheels and two of the remaining wheels at a time. This setup allows the rider to carve, slide and spin down the street like a snowboarder would. This looks like fun to ride but at a cost of about $250 for a Freebord, it’s not cheap.

The project started with a home-made deck simply cut from plywood. To get that extra wide stance standard skateboard trucks were modified. Long coupling nuts were screwed onto the truck axles and epoxied into place. On a normal skateboard the wheel rides on an axle that is part of the truck. Since the axles were covered up by the coupling nuts, bolts were used to secure the wheels to the now much wider trucks.

The pivoting wheels for the Freebord look like standard casters so that’s what [jfaneumann] used for his board. He did remove the rubber wheels and replace them with inline skate wheels with real bearings. Wood shims space the casters away from the deck to put them at the right height compared to the other 4 skate wheels.

In the end, [jfaneumann] got the summer riding experience he desired without spending a boatload of cash.

Fixing A Toyota Camry Hybrid Battery For Under Ten Dollars

February 14, 2015 by Rick Osgood 185 Comments

[scoodidabop] is the happy new owner of a pre-owned Toyota Camry hybrid. Well at least he was up until his dashboard lit up like a Christmas tree. He did some Google research to figure out what all of the warning lights meant, but all roads pointed to taking his car into the dealer. After some diagnostics, the Toyota dealer hit [scoodidabop] with some bad news. He needed a new battery for his car, and he was going to have to pay almost $4,500 for it. Unfortunately the car had passed the manufacturer’s mileage warranty, so he was going to have to pay for it out-of-pocket.

[scoodidabop] is an electrician, so he’s obviously no stranger to electrical circuits. He had previously read about faulty Prius batteries, and how a single cell could cause a problem with the whole battery. [scoodidabop] figured it was worth testing this theory on his own battery since replacing a single cell would be much less expensive than buying an entire battery.

He removed the battery from his car, taking extra care not to electrocute himself. The cells were connected together using copper strips, so these were first removed. Then [scoodidabop] tested each cell individually with a volt meter. Every cell read a voltage within the normal range. Next he hooked up each cell to a coil of copper magnet wire. This placed a temporary load on the cell and [scoodidabop] could check the voltage drop to ensure the cells were not bad. Still, every cell tested just fine. So what was the problem?

[scoodidabop] noticed that the copper strips connecting the cells together were very corroded. He thought that perhaps this could be causing the issue. Having nothing to lose, he soaked each and every strip in vinegar. He then wiped down each strip with some steel wool and placed them into a baking soda bath to neutralize the vinegar. After an hour of this, he reassembled the battery and re-installed it into his car.

It was the moment of truth. [scoodidabop] started up his car and waited for the barrage of warning lights. They never came. The car was running perfectly. It turned out that the corroded connectors were preventing the car from being able to draw enough current. Simply cleaning them off with under $10 worth of supplies fixed the whole problem. Hopefully others can learn from this and save some of their own hard-earned money.

Know Your Speed On Rollerblades

February 12, 2015 by Bryan Cockfield 17 Comments

[Anurag] is a computer engineering student with a knack for rollerblading. Rollerblades are not a transportation device that are often fitted with speedometers, so [Anurag] took that more as a challenge and designed this Arduino-powered computer to give him more information on his rollerblade rides.

The device uses an Arduino as the brain, and counts wheel revolutions (along with doing a little bit of math) in order to calculate the speed of the rider. The only problem with using this method is that the wheels aren’t on the ground at all times, and slow down slightly when the rider’s foot is off the ground. To make sure he gets accurate data, the Arduino uses an ultrasonic rangefinder to determine the distance to the ground and deduce when it should be taking speed measurements.

In addition to speed, the device can also calculate humidity and temperature, and could be configured to measure any number of things. It outputs its results to a small screen, but it could easily be upgraded with Bluetooth for easy data logging. If speed is truly your goal, you might want to have a look at these motorized rollerblades too.

Android Tablet Finds New Home In Car Dash

February 10, 2015 by Rich Bremer 51 Comments

[Matt]’s 2008 Subaru’s stereo wasn’t really cutting the mustard for him anymore. He wanted to do something, something a little more custom than just an aftermarket stereo. After giving it some thought he decided he would try to mount an Android tablet in his car’s dash to act as a media player.

The HTC Evo View tablet appeared to be a great size to fit in the space left over from the stock radio, and it did fit nicely but there was a problem, the AC vent was in the way of the headphone and USB jacks! This was only a minor inconvenience for [Matt]. Instead of butchering the AC vents he decided to disassemble the tablet and see what the other options were. Luckily for him, both the USB and headphone jacks were on their own PCB boards. A quick slot cut in the rear tablet case allowed both connectors to now face towards the front of the car into the gaping crevasse the stock stereo once filled. Since the manipulated tablet case was facing inside the dash it wouldn’t create any unsightliness for the passengers.

With those connections out of the way it was time to focus on mounting the tablet in the dash. The stock trim panel that housed the old radio and two AC vents was modified with a hand-made fiberglass bezel to fit the tablet screen and make it look like the car came that way. The bezel was sanded smooth and painted to match the rest of the interior.

Originally, [Matt] had to turn the tablet both on and off when starting and stopping the car. He then stumbled upon a product called the IOIO. The IOIO allows an Android device to interact with the inputs and outputs; both digital and analog, I2C, SPI and UART. It even has a voltage regulator that can take the car’s 12v supply and knock it down to 5 for the tablet. [Matt] also connected the IOIO to the car’s ‘ignition on’ circuit to turn the unit on and off with the car.

[Matt] plans on doing more with the IOIO’s capabilities in the future, but until then, he still has a pretty nice looking and unique car stereo.

Wireless Helmet Speakers Receive A+ For Distracting Wearer

February 6, 2015 by Rich Bremer 27 Comments

What could be better than cruising around town on your fave scooter? Cruising around town on your fave scooter listening to some cool tunes, of course! [sswanton] was enrolled in an Industrial Design course and was tasked with creating a wireless radio project for a specific user (of his choice). He decided to add some wireless speakers to a motorcycle helmet and design a handlebar-mounted radio.

[sswanton] started out by disassembling the ultra-inexpensive, old-school, battery-powered Sony ICF-S22 radio specified by the class. The stock case was discarded as he would have to make a new one that fits onto the bike’s handlebars. Plywood makes up majority of the frame while the cover is black acrylic. Getting the acrylic bent required heating to 160 degrees so that it could be bent around a form [sswanton] created specifically for this project. A few cutouts in the case allows the rider to access the volume and tuning knobs.

The speakers added to the helmet were from wireless headphones and came with a matched transmitter. The transmitter was removed from it’s unnecessarily large case, installed in the radio’s newly created enclosure and connected to the radio’s headphone output. Situating the headphone components in the ideal locations of the helmet required that the headphones be disassembled. The speakers were placed in the helmets ear cups. Part of the original headphone case and some control buttons were mounted on the outside of the helmet for easy access. The wires connecting the components had to be extended to reconnect the now spread-out parts.

In order to hear that sweet music all the rider needs to do is turn on the headphones and radio. Check this out to see some more helmet speakers, this time a little more wacky.